imaginative minds -- Zoe

[k!ah]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 0E0E0E; border: C1DADB solid 5px; width: 500px; height: 181px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 50px][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true] Joe Blogs Main[464E4F] Thoughts[C1DADB] Speech[708A8C] Others speech[1D3D40]

[/i][/size]

My hand runs through the rugged fur of Boston’s coat, a smile forming on my lips. Every day was the same thing. I would come home from a long boring day at school and I would come straight here. It was one of my favourite places, the place where I could let my mind wander, the place where I could just lay back and let the gentle crunching of Boston’s teeth ripping into the grass take me away to a place where the sun shone constantly, to the place where rainbows were not just a reflection in the sky, but they were the sky. Sounds silly right? But just think about, think about a place where everything that happened, happened because you wanted it to, happened because you thought of it. It was like being God. You deciding when things happened, why things happened. It is a place where your dreams came true because there is nothing there to hold them back apart from yourself!

Just stop. Just think. Take in everything I have said, let it flow through your mind- yes like that! Now do you see? Do you see this place- your place, your creation forming before your eyes. No? Try harder. form that image, let it take you away, even if it is for just a little while. Have a go, please?

Letting my hand fall from his soft coat I turn to leave. I hear a small nicker behind me and look over my shoulder to see Boston shake is head in a gesture of our parting. I smile at him, and wave before turning away not to look back again. The paddock was only small, so it doesn’t take me long to wander to the other side, my hands closing around the cool metal wire as I haul myself over. Unlike most animal fences, mine was pretty tall. I wasn’t quite sure why, but something told me that this place used to be used for something else, a time when I wasn’t even born. Shrugging away the thoughts I continue my walk deeper into the heart of the district. I wasn’t heading home, no; it was too early to be hanging around my house like a fly on the wall with nothing to do. I wanted to explore the district, the place I called my home. It’s not often that I feel this undying urge to go gallivanting around the tenth district, but when I did I didn’t stop to think where I was going- I just ran into the unknown my legs guiding me.

Sometimes I wander what it is like on the other side of the district, I wander if life in that side was as hard as the life we lived on this side. But before you go judging me about how lazy it seemed not to know about the other side of my home, let me try and explain to you the reasons behind this lack of knowledge. You see the district was huge, divided into paddocks that ranged in size, covering miles and miles of the land. I lived on the outskirts, near the electric fence that buzzed day and night… not often did I get the chance to venture into the town centre- yes at least once a year for the reaping of course, but other than that- to actually get to the town canter- well that’s like a two hour walk!

That’s when I am hit on the head with a bloody fantastic idea that makes a smile, bigger that the sun, slips onto my lips, my eyes widening with anticipation. Pulling my bag up higher onto my shoulders I turn around, my feet leading me back to the fence that housed the few animals that I could call my own. I don’t climb the fence this time, I walk around it, my hand grazing the rough wires as I came to a halt in front of the old wooded shed that made home at the corner. With a bounce in my step I spring the door open, and light floods the room. It only takes me a moment to find what I am looking for before I am bounding across the open fields of the paddock over to where Boston still munched happily.

“Boston! Boston I have the best idea!” I squeal at him, my hands grabbing eagerly at each side of the cows face. Instantly the cow was alert its eyes staring into mine- annoyance clear in their dark depths. But I push that away, he didn’t have time to be annoyed with me. “Boston I am going to go out on a limb here as say that you are just excited as I am to be going into the town centre today! Why? How you may ask,” I question him, moving around to his side where I flopped a small blanket over his back. “Well you’re going to walk, and me, well I am going to ride you!” Flinging my bad to the side I pull on the saddle that is clutched in my hands onto the broad back of the cow. True the saddle was built for a horse, and true it barely fitted around him, but I didn’t really care, I was to eager- too excited with my idea to even notice.

Tightening the straps around his stomach I give him an affectionate pat, the smile on my lips just as big as it had been before. “You as pumped as I am Boston?” I coo at him, pushing the reins mouth piece into his mouth. At first he tried to bit non to gently at my fingers- but after a moment he realised that that was useless and allowed me to push the piece into his mouth where it secured itself. “Now, aren’t we going to have a blast?” And with that I grab hold of the reins, ready to guide him out of the paddock and onto the dusty road that would lead us to the place that was our destination.


[/blockquote][/justify][/size][/td][/tr][/td][/tr][/table][/center]

[✨ zozo.]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-image: url(http://25.media.tumblr.com/4f51118c6434eb74723a61c9ad10f2d5/tumblr_mt1zl9aMU91qb1wkyo1_250.gif); border: ffffff solid 1px; width: 215px; height: 215px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 5 0 0 0px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-image: url(http://31.media.tumblr.com/3c01caa5595c5e9824b060178baf6523/tumblr_mt1zl9aMU91qb1wkyo4_250.gif); border: ffffff solid 1px; width: 215px; height: 215px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0 5 0 0px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: efdec6; border: ffffff solid 1px; padding: 0 0 0 0 px; width: 432px; height: 300px; border-radius: 0 0 5 5px;]

stana corby.

[/size]

There are times when I wish I was a character in a book, and I could say or do whatever I wanted because someone has already written it out for me. And it wouldn't matter because I wouldn't be in control of what I did or said anyhow - always someone controlling me, my situation, mine's and everyone else's.

(I tend not to like control - it's burdened me for too long. A lifetime of fighting it tends to wear you down. But in this universe, I think it would be an ok kind of control instead.)

But I am not a character in a book. I'm just a human being and I can't say or do what I want (although I try to) to other people, because they're not characters in a book either. They're all just human beings.

I am trying to be a human being. A decent one.

And it's exhausting.

The pencil halts at the bottom of the page. I frown, twisting blades of grass in-between charcoal-covered fingers and aching bones. Vulnerability isn't often spilt across these pages but it's not like anybody would dare to read them anyway. Day after day I plant myself in the middle of the afternoon sun and spill out everything in my mind. Rarely, however, do my own personal conundrums fall across in lead-bodied letters. It seems selfish to fill up such potential with silly teenage thoughts that will come and go with the passing breeze as easily as seasons do. But if I don't get them out somewhere I may explode. (Best on paper than across the walls with angry, snatching knuckles or my skin with razor-sharp teeth.)

And they're not even rage-infused words with any purpose or instigation. No gasoline poured on a simmering ember to set them alight, no reason behind my thoughts. As I sigh into the grass around me the pages shut against my stomach, sealing up my imagination with a satisfying pop! Clouds dance above me and I wonder what it would feel like to be weightless, to float up into the sky and never come back. Hands that stretch to shield my eyes let strands of light shine down on me to say hello, and then in the blink of an eye I'm scratching down a line of writing before I have time to smile back up at the sun.

I am the spaces between my fingers, daylight shining through.

The book closes again and I hug it against my chest, drumming the pencil against my ribcage to the beat of my pulse. A thousand strings of inspiration hum to the melody in my mind from the corners of the pages, it's leather-bound spine tingling with my deepest desires. A blanket of sun warms my body as I turn to look at the sky again, wondering what would happen if the clouds stopped chasing each-other across the sky and simply stood still. Or if they decided that they'd chase themselves back home again - would we all begin to spin backwards, my words un-writing themselves from the pages? Would I trudge back home and swallow the defiant words I told my mother back down, bury myself underneath the blankets of my bedroom and grow smaller and smaller with each passing day? Would I cease to exist, would my parents grow apart? Would they run backwards in fields of gold, would my father leave a bright young girl to wither away in her bedroom plagued by grief and loss, would he rip himself away from her screaming body and place her back next to her dead mother? Would her mother have knives pulled out of her body, would streams of blood ricochet back into her veins - and then what? Would the clouds decide to chase the other way again?

Would I even want that? To not exist?

(I don't know.)

No matter, those thoughts are saved for another day, another time. I blink and they have uprooted themselves from the ground of my conscience, replaced with the image of a boy and his horse riding past. Inspiration strikes again and instinctively my hands reach out towards the image before me - so far away, yet so close all at once - but they do not catch at him.

"Wait," I say to an airy nothing, the wind drowning out my words. "Come back."

And then I do something rather unlike myself. Fingers grasp at my book and shove my pencil in my pocket and I run, as fast as my feet will carry me (until they're aching and screaming for mercy), in the attempts to reach him before he passes. There's something liberating about chasing inspiration - and think that perhaps this is what a cloud feels like after all, chasing visions of something that bleeds ideas into my brain. I've never ridden a horse before (a secret I wouldn't tell anyone around here in fear of being mocked, like a District Four who couldn't swim), but something about the way the stranger makes it seem so effortlessly fun makes me want to suddenly try it.

"Hey, wait!" I call through breathless heaves to the boy and his horse. "Slow down!"

My Mother would warn me about safety and strangers, but she's not here. Nor is my Father - though he would pat me on the back and say "Atta' girl. Have fun, kiddo."

And I am most definitely my father's child.

[/justify][/blockquote][/color][/font][/size][/td][/tr][/table]

[k!ah]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 0E0E0E; border: C1DADB solid 5px; width: 500px; height: 181px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 50px][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true] Joe Blogs Main[464E4F] Thoughts[C1DADB] Speech[708A8C] Others speech[1D3D40]

[/i][/size]

The reins in my hands are thick straps of leather. I hold them tightly, my fingers straining as I try to persuade Boston to leave the comfort of his pen. It has been a long time since the cow has left the pen, it was a place where he felt safe, a place where he knew that he would be okay. I didn’t blame the poor thing, when I had found him… he had been pretty close to death and it took everything I had to coax him back to health, every day I spent time with him, every day I made sure he knew how much he meant to me. To me he wasn’t just a cow- he was a friend. Someone who had gone through hard times with me- someone who I have guided through times that looked so low, that I am pretty sure he was going to die, and brought him out the end to be a better person- uh, cow. Most people looked at me weird when I told them about Boston, you see I talked about him as though he was another living being, and sometimes even confused him to be my brother… but then I would clarify myself and they would give me those ‘are you a crazy mother fucker’ look before scrambling away- scared that I would pass on this contagious disease of live.

Giving one last grunt I pull hard at the reins, finally pulling the cow free from its pen and into the unknown which lived beyond his home. “Now, it’s not so bad is it?” I ask him, before slipping around to his side to climb onto his back. But just as I slide onto his back he turns around and bolts back into the safety of his paddock, I grasp tightly at his mane, my legs slipping slightly as his jerky movements send my body bouncing as I tried not to fall flat on my arse. “Hey Boston wait! Town centre is the other way! Boston.” Finally the bull comes to a stop, and this time I knew it would be useless to try and drag him back into the open. Giving him one last look, I sigh, removing the reins from the tight grasp of this mouth. “I guess it wasn’t such a fab Idea,” I mumble to no one in particular.

As soon as his mouth is free from the horrid straps his head dives to the ground, eager to munch on the grass on which he had been separated from for a few minutes- to him it must have seemed like a life time. Despite myself I smile, Boston forgetting my very existence as he has a very intense reunion with his long lost food friend. With a finally pat on his shoulder I grab the saddle and reins and walk over to one of the other animals that’s wall this square of grass their home. It was a horse, one who was slightly crazy, one that I tended to avoid. You see unlike the normal average male stallion that chased after mares on heat… well he seems more interested in the female donkeys, the ones with the buck teeth.

Sighing I walk up to the unique horse, a smile of assurance n my lips. “Hey there Buster, how you going?” I greet the horse, my hand coming to a halt on the horses face. His eyes seemed to smile at me as he flicked his head in greeting. I smile. Over the years I have grown close to Buster, spending more and more time with him as slowly Boston leaves me to be with his lady and their baby I didn’t mind, not really, he was a after now… But I missed him. I take a quick glance over my shoulder, Boston was still munching happily at the grass. Just like always, I guess something never change.

“So Buster, how do you feel about going for a little run.” No response. “We might see some of those smoking hot female Donkeys that you are always having a good stare at,” I tempt him, a smile playing at the edge of my lips. “Come on Buster, think about those teeth, those glorious, big ass teeth.” Then I have him. He flicks his head once, then twice then a third time, in quick succession. “Thata boy!” I praise him, strapping the saddle to his back.

Finally we are on the road, dust fling up behind us, like a cloud, the particles being carried away with as the wind howls past. A howl escapes the barrier o my lips and I throw my head back in the air, letting the breeze wrap around my neck, around my body, holding my in a tight embrace. It has been years since I have ridden like this, and to feel the wind against the bare skin of my arm once again reminds me of the times when I used to ride Buster around for hours, we would explore my home, camp out at night, just the two of us, and sometimes a couple of my mates from school, but usually, just me and Buster. My hand extends to Rub the old horses neck, my face leaning close to his ear where I murmur some words of praise, he nickers and flicks his mane before coming into a gentle trot.

”Hey, wait! Slow down!” A shout from behind me makes me pull Buster to a stop. I turn around into the seat of the saddle, my hand pressing into the leather material. Behind me a girl ran, breathless as she tried to catch my attention. A form slips onto my face for a moment before transforming into a smile as the girl neared. “Well hello there!” my greeting in enthusiastic my eyes study the rusty brown haired girl. “Can- can I help you?”


[/blockquote][/justify][/size][/td][/tr][/td][/tr][/table][/center]

[✨ zozo.]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-image: url(http://i.imgur.com/u7tpFJS.png); width: 320px; height: 280px; opacity: 1; border-left: 0px solid 090909; border-right: 0px solid e5e6e5; padding: 0px; border-radius: 20px 20px 0px 0px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: dbdbda; width: 300px; height: 200px; opacity: 1; border-left: 10px solid e5e6e5; border-right: 10px solid e5e6e5; border-bottom: 10px solid e5e6e5; padding: 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;] stana corby.

[/size][/color]
► LISTEN ◄

When I was small I would write stories about little girls and horses. And read them, of course, but the books the issued us at school were never all that interesting, so I made it in my best interests to write my very own. In the margins of my paper I drew shaking scribbles of illustration to decorate my words that spoke of adventure and bravery and brought them to life when my teachers would snatch away my books and scold me for not paying attention. (I am so glad that I left that place, filled with their Capitol propaganda and useless information about absolutely nothing.) I learn more out here, in the world, than I ever did in those four dusty old walls.

What I never did learn how to do was ride one. I could close my eyes and envision it, scrawl down the sensations and feelings only my imagination could assume were true. Balancing on fences and returning with dirt-scraped knees and blood-stained tights that made my mother shriek with worry did me no help, for if I mentioned a horse to my father she would look at him with that absolutely not face and we'd lose our battle before it had begun.

Our fields, Dad tells me, once held a home for horses of all shapes and sizes. When he was my age and my Grandfather owned the properties he would spend day after day riding until the sun disappeared behind the horizon, and all I can do is dream. She means well, my mother, but the more you try to constrain me the more I'll push you away. I don't know why it's taken her so long to realise that, but she still holds her binds as tightly as she can.

Regardless, one thing I have inherited from my mother is my want and need to fulfill my desires. And right now a desire to learn (I never thought I'd feel that since I'd left school, but hey - I'm full of surprises, me) itches in my skin as I beam up at the boy who greets me with a "Well hello there!" and "Can- can I help you?"

I smile back - District Ten courtesy is second-nature to us all and fed to us with our baby food - and catch my breath. "Yeah," I breathe, placing one hand on my hip and another to shield my eyes from the sun's glare. "This is going to sound odd, but can I ride your horse?"

Like I said. Full of surprises, me.

[/color]

[/center]

☀

[/color][/blockquote][/justify][/size][/font][/td][/tr][/table][/center]